Today is not a good day to be Frito-Lay. Every company has their missteps, but you really have to stop and wonder how the higher-ups at Frito-Lay let a fiasco like this happen on their watch: Today the multinational snack brand is currently performing some much-needed damage control after printing thousands of bags of Cheetos that claimed Cheetos could be used as a flotation device.
Yup, it’s safe to say someone’s getting fired for this one. Take a look at the packaging snafu below:
Yikes! That’s going to leave a stain on the company’s reputation. No matter how good their intentions may have been, labeling their puffed cheese snack as a flotation device only served to blow up in their face. The company has since issued a massive recall of the bags and launched an around-the-clock PR campaign to apologize for suggesting that Cheetos would suffice in keeping someone afloat in water.
Frito-Lay addressed the incident in a contrite press release:
We here at Frito-Lay are immensely sorry for having misled our customers in claiming that Cheetos are an adequate flotation device. It turns out that this is not true. Frito-Lay cannot vouch for Cheetos’ viability as anything but a snack food. In the event that a person is drowning, we strongly discourage lifeguards from responding by strewing armfuls of Cheetos into the water. Storing Cheetos onboard a boat or any aquatic vehicle should be solely for the purpose of eating, as they do not fulfill any mandates necessary for complying with Federal Boating Safety Regulations. To those who have lost a friend or a loved one because of this, we offer our deepest apologies.
To guarantee the erasure of any and all misconceptions that resulted from this faux pas, Frito-Lay also vowed to include a drowning warning label on future bags of Cheetos so consumers know not to rely on the snack as a means of aquatic safety.
Try as they might to allay the damage, Frito-Lay may continue regretting this miscalculation for some time to come. It’s still unclear who was responsible for the dismal display of judgment. Whoever it was better start cleaning out their desk, because this one was a screwup for the ages.
